Hydrogenolysis of oxygen functions such as alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, esters, or ethers has been known in the art. The prior art teaches a number of catalysts for this reaction among them being copper chromite, CuO.CuCr.sub.2 O.sub.8 and palladium or carbon. These suffer from several disadvantages. Severe conditions of temperature and pressure are required, typically temperatures greater than 250.degree. C and pressures in excess of 3000 psi are required. In addition the reactions under these conditions are usually very non-selective and other unwanted side reactions occur. Furthermore only certain types of alcohols are hydrogenolyzed even under the most severe conditions employed. Primary alochols such as methanol for instance are resistant to hydrogenolysis even under the most severe reaction conditions. These systems also suffer from the tendency to be susceptible to poisoning from trace substituents such as sulfur.
Reduction of oxygen functions, stoichiometrically by expensive reducing agents such as LiAlH.sub.4.AlCl.sub.3 or Sn and HCl are also known but are not particularly useful due to the expense of the reducing agent which is used up in the reaction.
It is therefore the object of this invention to overcome the above disadvantages and thus provide an improved and more economically and commercially feasible hydrogenolysis process in which molecular hydrogen is used to form saturated compounds from alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, esters, or ethers.
Another object of this invention is to provide a more reactive and more stable catalytic hydrogenolysis system than has heretofore been described in the prior art, and one which will readily convert even primary alcohols to saturated hydrocarbon.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a more selective and more reactive catalytic hydrogenolysis system for the removal of oxygen functionality from organic compounds.
Still another object is to provide a procedure for converting alkyl phenol ethers to phenols and alkanes.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an improved hydrogenolysis process enabling the efficient and selective production of such useful materials as methane from methanol or bis (para-methoxy-phenyl) ethane from anisoin in the presence of an improved and more stable catalyst system, thus enabling the use of lower temperature and lower pressure than has generally been possible heretofore and facilitating product isolation, catalyst recovery and recycle without substantial catalyst decomposition and loss.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the accompanying description of the invention.